A special session began Thursday night immediately after state lawmakers’ budget negotiations cratered during the final hours of a regular legislative session, The Associated Press reports.
The failure forced the House and Senate into a special session to try to cobble together a deal on a more than $28 billion spending plan. The House, however, immediately adjourned until Monday, forcing the Senate to exit as well because all budget bills must start in the House.
It’s the first time the Legislature has failed to pass a budget during a regular session since 2000. Republican House Speaker Taylor Barras said Senate leaders and Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards “wouldn’t budge” in negotiations, making it nearly impossible to find common ground. He said the House offered to spend $100 million more than its original plan only to find a wall of opposition from the Senate and the governor.
“The governor hasn’t moved one inch on anything,” says House Appropriations Chairman Cameron Henry, the Republican who with Barras was the chief negotiator on a budget deal.
Edwards blamed House Republican leadership for causing another session at an average cost of $50,000 to $60,000 per day.
“Nobody can pretend this was a good day for the state of Louisiana,” Edwards says. “We now know that the majority of legislators came here determined to fix these problems and to work in a bipartisan way. We now know that it was a minority in the House that prevented that from happening.”
